Bushgate Shoe Thrower Zaidi to be Released Today

Today, the shoes are being auctioned off for a starting tag of $10 million.

The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former US President George W Bush during a news conference is due to reach the end of his prison sentence.

...The previously little-known journalist from the private Cairo-based al-Baghdadia TV has become a hero to many, not just in Iraq but across the Arab world, for what many saw as a fitting send-off for a deeply unpopular US president.

As he flung the shoes, Mr Zaidi shouted: "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

His action was celebrated in internet games and on T-shirts and some have offered him their daughters in marriage.

 

...A senior official at the channel said that his salary had continued to be paid during his prison term and that a home had been bought for him in the capital.

 Arabianbusiness.com has named Iraqi journalist Muntadar Al Zaidi the third most influential individual in the Arab world.

...In January 2009, orphaned children in the Iraqi city of Tirkut helped Iraqi Iraqi artist  Laith al-Amari erect a six-foot copper and fibreglass monument of a shoe like the ones that Al Zaidi hurled at Bush. Both the children and adult citizens of Tirkut celebrated the shoe monument's unveiling, on January 29, 2009, as cameras whirled and transmitted images all over the world.

Iraq's puppet central government ordered it taken down and destroyed the next day, but the images live.
 

Today, a 3-metre high copper statue dedicated to him, depicting his famous size 10 shoe, stands in Hussain's hometown, Tikrit.

The infamous incident has sparked off similar acts of defiance worldwide. Canadians threw shoes at posters of Bush in front of the US consulate in Montreal and Toronto, while a reporter also threw a shoe at a Ukrainian politician.